


280. glittery gold

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [218]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Nail Polish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 17:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9560480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Helena and Sarah paint each other's nails and discuss makeovers.





	

“I have never done this,” Helena says, as she dips the brush into the nail polish bottle. She keeps getting distracted by her own nails; they’re bright green, and Sarah had painted them like it was easy, and there’s no polish around the edges. For Sarah, Helena picked gold. In her dreams Sarah is always gold.

“It’s alright,” Sarah says, sounding lazily amused. She’s sitting across the kitchen table from Helena, one arm stretched out. “Trust me, I’ve had worse. Felix used to do this with the cheapest nail polish he could find, and he was seven. You’ll be fine.”

Helena presses the nail polish brush to Sarah’s nail. Nothing particularly terrible happens. She paints a stripe, and then a second, and then a third. One nail done, nine to go.

“We used to do this a lot, actually,” Sarah says, voice gone soft with memory. “When we didn’t have anything else to do. Fe’d try out all the makeup on me first, ‘fore he used it on himself. He did a lot of makeovers.”

“We haven’t done it in years,” she says, and then lapses into silence.

“What is makeover,” Helena says, just to fill the space. She knows what it means, mostly, but it’ll give Sarah the chance to keep talking.

“It’s – when you make someone pretty,” Sarah says, stumbling in her attempt at a definition. “With makeup and new clothes and shit.”

“Like in _Cinderella_?”

“Like in _Cinderella_ ,” Sarah says in obvious relief. “Exactly. You got it.”

“That sounds nice,” Helena says, without looking up from Sarah’s hand. “Did Felix make you look pretty.”

“He tried,” Sarah says wryly. “Once he wanted to put me in a dress and I shoved him so hard he almost fell out a window.” She pauses. “Don’t tell anyone I told you that story, I think he forgot it.”

Helena taps her finger to her lips, _shh_. “I will keep secret,” she says. Left hand done. Sarah obligingly holds out her right, and Helena keeps painting her gold.

“I don’t – understand it,” Helena says haltingly. “I put on lipstick once, for Rachel, but not – the eyes. And – and the face. I do not know the words for this. But no.”

“Can’t imagine Proletheans did a lot of makeovers,” Sarah says, voice dry.

“No,” Helena says. “Mostly guns.”

When Helena returns the brush to the bottle Sarah presses her fingers lightly to Helena’s wrist: _I’m here, it’s fine_. Neither of them make particular note of it but it makes something unfold in Helena’s chest – something warm, something present. She’s here. It’s fine.

“I was always shit at it,” Sarah sighs. “Nail polish’s about all I got, yeah? You could ask Fe, though. If you wanted.”

“I don’t know,” Helena says, in a way that means that she does know and what she knows is that she won’t do it.

“I like this, though,” she says, words tripping over themselves in their haste to get out of her mouth. “This – I like it.”

“Me too,” Sarah says. She sounds like she means it. Helena doesn’t look at her face, just to let herself keep believing that Sarah means it.

“Been a while,” Sarah says softly. Helena wonders if Sarah is thinking about it too: that in some other world, Helena would have been there. There would have been a triangle. They could have matched polish, if Sarah had wanted to. Maybe she wouldn’t have. Or maybe – maybe, in that world, they both would have been gold.

“Maybe—” Helena starts, and then stops. She lets go of Sarah’s hand and it drifts lightly down to the table; she keeps looking at the polish, like it’ll dry if she just stares at it long enough. “Um,” she says. “I like – all the colors. So. Once the green is done. Maybe you could.” And then she stops.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. “Let me know, alright? We can do this again.”

Helena flicks her eyes up from Sarah’s hands to watch her face – Sarah is looking at her, smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. She looks like she means it. She does. She means it. She means it, and Helena smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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